Divine Mercy

Self-compassion begins with divine mercy that is inside us. Mercy is not an action but a space: a place of absolute acceptance of what is right now and this space opens up when we feel hopeless about ourselves or our situation.

Our patience for ourselves is finite. Intellectual human forgiveness is a tiny, hard kernel that dries itself up in grumbling and chastising. But inside us is mercy that expands when our hearts feel so squeezed that they cannot seem to shrink any more than they already have. 

We remember the decisions we’ve made in the past, feel the currents of our emotions in the present, look into a future that is shapeless, and we loathe this experience.  We start with forgiving ourselves first, not only for our wrongdoing, but we also forgive our shame and disappointments. We forgive them for being there, for haunting us. If we can forgive ourselves in this moment of self-loathing, if we let mercy expand, the eyes with which we see ourselves renew.